Lost In Translation (34 page)

Pandemonium ensued as priests rushed to her. Rikkarrikk roared something and tossed Kathryn to one side, where another priest seized her roughly, claws leaving fiery, bloody welts on her arms, the fury that filled him stunning her further.
They think we've killed her,
Kathryn thought numbly, looking at the still figure of the High Priest.
Maybe we have.

Jarrikk climbed slowly to his feet, looked at the High Priest, then glanced at Kathryn. But nothing of the telepathic link remained. She could sense weariness that matched her own, and concern for the High Priest, and that was all.

Rikkarrikk straightened abruptly, and she half-expected him to turn around and execute them on the spot. But in his emotions she read fury giving way to surprise. He glanced in their direction, then turned back to the High Priest, and Kathryn realized that the High Priest had said something to him. She lived, then: and it seemed Kathryn and Jarrikk would continue to, as well, because Rikkarrikk suddenly turned and snapped an order, and the priest holding her, after a moment's surprise as great as Rikkarrikk's had been, released her reluctantly.

Kathryn went to Jarrikk and took his hand.
Keep holding on,
he said telepathically.
I'll translate.

Kathryn leaned gratefully against Jarrikk's warm flank. Why was every building on S'sinndikk so cold, cold, cold? Sensing her discomfort, he enveloped her shoulders with his wing while continuing to hold her hand, and she was momentarily reminded of her father putting his arm around her when she was a little girl—but remembering her father led inevitably to other memories she didn't want to recall just now.

The High Priest straightened and spoke. Through Jarrikk, Kathryn understood her—and sensed her growing anger, no longer directed at them, but at a most unexpected target.

“Kitillikk,” the High Priest said. “Kitillikk has used us. Kitillikk arranged the assassination attempt against the Supreme Flight Leader to further her own ambition. Kitillikk swayed some of our own brothers and sisters to keep the Supreme Flight Leader imprisoned here so she might have free reign. Kitillikk lied to us about Akkanndikk being dead.”

“Your Eminence,” Rikkarrikk said, “I don't understand why you have suddenly decided to believe these two—” he gestured at Jarrikk and Kathryn.

“Are you questioning me, Hunter-Priest?”

Rikkarrikk drew himself up straighter. “It is my duty to do so if I believe you err, Your Eminence. And so I believe.”

The S'sinn in the room exchanged uneasy glances, and Kathryn sensed them shifting position: through her Link with Jarrikk, could almost see the battle lines being drawn between Rikkarrikk and his Hunter-Priests and the priests surrounding the High Priest. For a moment she thought violence would erupt then and there, but the High Priest had a better idea.

“Translator Jarrikk,” she said. “I think it would be most expedient if you would simply explain matters to Rikkarrikk as you explained them to me.”

“Yes, Your Eminence.”

Jarrikk squeezed Kathryn's hand by way of preparation. She closed her eyes, and this time the linkage came at once, much more easily, so easily that Kathryn/ Jarrikk realized that it would never be difficult again, that they could call on this melding whenever they needed it. They made the projective leap into Rikkarrikk's mind, pushed down his barriers, showed him what they knew, and leaped out again cleanly, this time ending the Link on their own. Simultaneously drawing deep breaths, they opened their eyes to see Rikkarrikk staring at them, looking dazed. “How . . .” he whispered.

“You were saying, Hunter-Priest?” the High Priest said dryly.

Rikkarrikk growled deep in his throat. “Kitillikk must pay for this outrage.”

“Indeed she must. But she is momentarily out of our reach. S'sinndikk, however, is not. Her rule here must end at once. Contact Central Communications. Tell them I wish to address the people of S'sinndikk, within two thousand beats. Skkarrissa,” she continued, turning to the aide by her side once more, “arrange a preliminary broadcast to all our Temples. All priests to listen and attend. Ikkillikk . . .”

The High Priest's orders went on for several more minutes, but Kathryn quit listening. She snuggled close to Jarrikk, her head against the kitten-soft fur of his flank, the slow throbbing of his right-side heart filling her ear, and all-but-dozed until Jarrikk suddenly stiffened and she straightened up herself, confused until she realized the High Priest had called his name.

“Your Eminence,” he replied.

“Rikkarrikk will accompany you to the Guildship
Unity.
You are free to go. I leave to you and your companion,” she
almost
managed to hide her distaste for Kathryn, “dealings with your Guild and the Commonwealth. Report to them what you must; let them take what action they will.”

“Your Eminence, what about the Hunter Fleet?”

“I can do nothing to stop them.”

“But if you contacted—”

“I
will
do nothing to stop them.” The High Priest looked steadily at Jarrikk. “Kitillikk has done wrong. Akkanndikk must be restored to her rightful position. If she chooses to call back the fleet, that is her choice. But it would not be mine.”

“But—”

“It would not be mine, Translator.”

Kathryn felt Jarrikk's anger, and understood. The High Priest would end Kitillikk's rule, because Kitillikk had transgressed against the Law. But she would do nothing to prevent the war Kitillikk had sought to trigger, because she wanted it, too. And the Supreme Flight Leader might not regain consciousness for days—if she ever did.

We've got to get in touch with Karak,
Kathryn urged Jarrikk.
Immediately. We've done all we can.

She
hasn't,
Jarrikk thought, but out loud he said stiffly, “Thank you, Your Eminence.”

Rikkarrikk and two other Hunter-Priests moved up beside them. “This way, Translators,” Rikkarrikk said, and though this time he served as honor guard rather than prison guard, all Kathryn sensed from him as he led them through the Temple was the same old hatred.

 

Karak stood on a balcony high up on the central tower of the Guildhall, the same tower through which the S'sinn terrorists had entered two days before, and looked across the gray roofs that lapped like waves at the Guildhall walls to Commonwealth Central's huge main spaceport. Another transport, fat and shiny like a dead, bloated fish, rode white fire into the sky—the fourth in the last twenty rotational degrees, and at least the tenth since the sun had risen that morning, and Karak's dawn flotation-meditation had been interrupted by the raucous signal of his comm.

He'd grown so used to bad news that it had been something of a shock to hear what the Translator who served as the Guild's Ambassador to Commonwealth Central had to report. “It worked,” Translator Shakik, a fellow Ithkarite, said, the high pitch of his voice betraying his excitement. Karak had chosen another Ithkarite as Ambassador precisely so that, for once, he wouldn't have to guess the emotional state of someone on the other end of the commlink. “The attack had precisely the opposite effect to what Kitillikk intended. The delegates—not to mention the people they represent, thanks to that video you sent out—suddenly realized, when they saw the Guild attacked, what it would really mean to allow the Commonwealth to splinter over this human/S'sinn question. They agreed that the Commonwealth must end this war before it begins. Orders have gone out; the Fleet is being mobilized.”

Karak had thanked Shakik for his report, but though he shared Shakik's relief, that relief was tempered by knowledge of a single dreadful fact: somewhere out in space, the Earth Fleet and the S'sinn Fleet were already bearing down on each other.

The Commonwealth fleet, with all its mixed crews with varying loyalties and beliefs as to the rights and wrongs of the conflict, might emerge from dimspace in the middle of battle already joined.

How well would this new-found resolve for unity hold up then?

 

Kitillikk paced the bridge of
Bloodfeud,
claws stabbing into the padded flooring with every step, breath smoking in the chilled air, wings swirling and snapping as she turned at each end of the Captain's Walk. In the pitlike control room below, surrounding her currently unoccupied command's station, the crew dared not look up at her; even Ukkarr had busied himself elsewhere.

Half a day had passed since the time she had expected to hear from her strike force on Commonwealth Central. Half a day since she should have received word of the destruction and humiliation of the Guild, of the first cut in the campaign that would bleed the Commonwealth to death. Half a day—and she had heard nothing. Nothing!

She growled deep in her throat, and a helm officer who had tentatively glanced her way suddenly found his controls of far greater interest.

Something had happened: of that Kitillikk was sure. Commonwealth space normally buzzed with an omnipresent dimspace static, the background roar of countless communications. It had ceased. A silence as deep as the one gripping the bridge now lay over the Commonwealth. But did the silence bode good or ill for the Hunter Fleet?

Civil war might account for it: relay stations abandoned or destroyed by racial factions striking blows for their own independence in response to the proof her strike force had given them that the Guild and Commonwealth were not invulnerable.

But as much as she wanted to believe that explanation, she couldn't. No, this felt more like a deliberate blackout, an attempt to prevent valuable information from leaking into the wrong hands. And those hands, she was almost certain, were attached to her own arms. She stopped pacing and extended those arms, flexing her clawed fingers, then suddenly snapped her wings wide and leaped down from the walkway, alighting beside her command station.

My Hunters must have succeeded,
she thought as she settled onto the shikk. She drew on the VR helmet. The ships of her fleet, recharging after their first dimspace jump, hung around her like crystals mounted in a web of silver, the
Bloodfeud
a diamond at its center. Of course it was only a computer simulation, but she drew strength from it.

Yes,
she thought.
My Hunters succeeded. The Guild has been hurt badly, perhaps even destroyed. The Commonwealth is starting to break up. Why else black out communication? Commonwealth Central is trying to keep the news from the populace. But it's hopeless. The whole unnatural alliance is dissolving, as I always knew it would. From now on it will truly be a galaxy for Hunters!

She suddenly laughed out loud, ignoring the startled looks of the bridge crew, and pulled off the helmet. “How long to Kikks'sarr? How long to battle?” she asked the helm officer.

“Two more jumps, Your Altitude. Less than two ship-days.”

“Excellent.” Kitillikk stretched, relaxed, and closed her eyes, and like any good Hunter trained to take advantage of any opportunity, instantly slept . . .

. . . and woke just a few hundred beats later, sensing someone beside her. “Hmmm?” she said without opening her eyes.

“A communication from S'sinndikk, Your Altitude,” Ukkarr said.

Kitillikk opened one eye and looked up at him. “Yes?”

Silently he handed her a short printout. She scanned it, stiffened, and read it again, slowly and carefully. Then she ripped it into shreds and threw it on the floor. “Dungsucking priests!” she screamed, as the bridge crew hunched their wings and studiously ignored her. “Turning on
me
now . . .”

“They found Akkanndikk,” Ukkarr said. “You should not have left her alive.”

“How dare you question my—” Kitillikk stopped in mid-rant and took a deep breath, then slowly opened and folded her wings. “You're right, of course, Ukkarr. I should not have. I have paid for that mistake.”

“What will you do?”

“I will do nothing. Communication from S'sinndikk can only be received by this ship. We will not receive anymore. The Hunter Fleet goes on—and once I have destroyed the humans, and the S'sinn learn of it, and of the crumbling of the Commonwealth, Akkanndikk will have no more power than she did as my prisoner beneath the Temple.” She settled herself on her shikk once more. “To the victor goes the prize, Ukkarr. And
I
will be the victor.”

“Of that, Your Altitude, I am certain.” Ukkarr bowed, gathered up the torn pieces of the message, and left the bridge.

 

Escorted by Hunter-Priests, Kathryn and Jarrikk walked slowly back to the spaceport, while overhead the sky grew crowded. S'sinn flitted from tower to tower, some furtively, some frantically. Firelances sizzled somewhere in the distance, and once an explosion shook the grassy ground. But no one troubled them.

They reached the Spaceport to find the Hunters who had surrounded it gone and the
Unity,
unguarded, almost alone on the field. Rikkarrikk bowed stiffly to Jarrikk, ignoring Kathryn, then snapped an order to his guards. Instantly they sprang into the air, pelting the two Translators with a stinging hail of grit stirred up by the wind of their wings.

Kathryn took Jarrikk's hand again as they trudged across the duracrete to the
Unity. It looks undamaged.

Humans.
Kathryn tugged Jarrikk forward.
Can't you go any faster?

No,
Jarrikk replied, but he did, a little. In the end it was too much for Kathryn and she broke free of him to dash the remaining fifty meters to the ship.